Watch Here:  https://youtu.be/fhfIPg4SB6M

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In Episode 29, it’s been a little while since Mark and Jamie got together for Lean Whiskey. We catch up on what’s new, which includes Mark’s new certification with distinction with the WSET Level 2 Spirits certification, and Jamie’s new side-hustle as a soccer referee. We return to making cocktails, this time building on our coffee theme from the pour-over edition of Episode 27. We both make coffee cocktails. Jamie is a whiskey espresso martini, equal parts bourbon, Kahlua, and freshly pulled espresso, shaken and served in a martini glass. Mark worked his way towards his own concoction, the Texas Revolver based on the Revolver cocktail using bourbon and coffee liqueur, but he used a couple of Texas-based brands and named it the Texas Revolver. We both follow our cocktails with some Glenn’s Creek Cafe Ole and discuss Mark’s lost barrel of bourbon. 

We did In the News with a twist, building on our coffee theme we used something close to the Lean Coffee format and covered many news stories for 5 minutes each. These stories covered Starbucks as a talent pool, CEO pay and diversity, wage inflation, what work really needs to be in-person, people leaving the restaurant industry, and using lean to help get jabs in arms. There was no theme here, just two guys sitting around talking about the news from a lean thinker’s perspective. 

After covering a lot of ground, Mark and Jamie look forward to the fall, including football. We hope you enjoy this episode. Please send Mark or Jamie questions, suggestions, or comments for our future discussions. Until next time, cheers! 

• Mark’s WSET Level 2 Spirits certification 
• Jamie’s retirement from coaching announcement and kickoff of a referee side-hustle 
• Lean Coffee episode of Lean Whiskey, Episode #27
• Jamie’s new ECM Casa V espresso machine 
• Jamie’s Town Branch bourbon used for the espresso martini
• Jamie’s Buzzopolis espresso blend from Whole Latte Love
• The base Revolver recipe that Mark started with 
• Mark’s Texas Revolver included 2 oz Garrison Brothers Hye Rye Bourbon, 0.5 oz Caffe del Fuego Reserve, 3 dashes orange bitters, 0.25 oz Dry Curacao, and 3 dashes coffee bitters
• We both finished with David Meier’s Cafe Ole
• Mark’s My Favorite Mistake episode with David Meier
• The Lean Coffee method we somewhat followed 
• News item #1: More U.S. companies tie CEO pay to diversity metrics
• News item #2: Wage Growth Among U.S. Job Switchers Increased 5.8 Percent Since June 2020 as Businesses Struggle to Attract Workers
• News item #3: Starbucks Is the New Talent Factory Powering Corporate America
• News item #4: When Do We Actually Need to Meet in Person?
• News item #5: How Lean Thinking and Practice Helped Put Shots in Arms, Part 1: Building the Process and Part 2: Wind-down and Reflection
• News item #6: Restaurants Will Never Be the Same. They Shouldn’t Be.
• Our college football schedules for tailgating at Lehigh and Northwestern
• Podcast feed at LeanWhiskey.com or leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or jflinch.com/leanwhiskey 

Please review us and follow! 

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In Episode 28, Mark and Jamie begin by having our spouses pour mystery whiskeys for us. We don’t know what they are when we start drinking them. Mark’s wife at least joins him occasionally in a dram, but Jamie’s wife is truly pouring without experience, but he’s safe since it is from his own shelf. Mark and Jamie give their best guess, so listen and see if they get it right.

Jamie and Mark then build on Mark’s highly successful, and prolific, podcast My Favorite Mistake. We talk about the podcast, its neat origin story, and then we dive into a couple of our own favorite mistakes, although without the systematic breakdown he includes in his podcast. We explore the whole point of examining our favorite mistakes.  Along the way, we cover old label designs and baseball and sushi. 

• Mark celebrated his 10 year anniversary as part of the KaiNexus team
• Mark’s mystery pour, Old Pulteney Single Malt Scotch Duncansby Head Lighthouse and his 2nd pour from Teeling
• Jamie’s mystery pour from 10 year old Whistle Pig rye and his second pour, a 10-year-old Jura scotch
• Mark’s My Favorite Mistake podcast
• Episodes that were lean-related, including Karyn Ross, Billy Taylor, and Karen Martin
• Whiskey-related episode about Garrison Brothers
• The favorite mistake story behind Angostura bitters’ label
• Redemption Whiskey and Tyler’s Mistake  
• Chicago Cubs baserunning mistake that wasn’t
• Food: uni and poutine, just not together
• Podcast feed at LeanWhiskey.com or leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or jflinch.com/leanwhiskey 

Please review us and follow! 

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who coached people like Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt.

I did a survey a few weeks ago on LinkedIn and found some pretty interesting responses. The question was: how is coaching perceived in your organization? 

LinkedIn polls limit how many options you can include, or I would have perhaps broken this down a little further, however, there are a couple of really interesting data points here that are worth exploring. First is how many organizations say it’s the last step before being fired. The second is how many organizations say it is required and everyone does because I’m not sure I buy that data point. 

34% of respondents said that coaching is the last step before being fired. I made this realization years ago with a client that we were talking about coaching, and there was a heavy resistance that we couldn’t understand why. After a little probing, they told me that “coaching” was a formal HR step meant to be the last step for possible salvation before you are let go. This horrified me that people would taint an otherwise powerful and important concept with this kind of application. Today many companies have different versions of this, often using the PIP, or Performance Improvement Plan (not much better, because shouldn’t we all have a performance improvement plan???).

Coaching shouldn’t be seen as a negative. In fact, I think it should be celebrated and more likely used as a reward. You have demonstrated that you will self-improve, and take responsibility, and we believe in your future, therefore we choose to invest in you by getting you coaching. Coaching is about making the good into great. Coaching is about making the best version of the other person. Coaching is about investing in that person. Coaching shouldn’t ever be considered a punishment. 

Another interesting data point from the survey was that another 34% of respondents said that coaching is required in their organization and everyone does. This surprised me. It’s entirely possible that because of the small data set that it is just biased data not representing the whole. The more concerning, and more likely, the reason is that people’s definition of coaching is too broad and vague. Based on my views of coaching, it certainly isn’t true that 34% of companies have everyone coaching. However, if coaching is seen as a synonym for doing performance evaluations, or getting or receiving feedback, or leaders sending people to training or something else that is good but not the same as coaching, then I believe the number. 

Coaching should be defined as both a relationship and a process. It is different from teaching. It is different from deciding. It is different from mentoring or sending people to training, or even different than caring about your team’s development. Coaching is a process of investing yourself in another person and helping them self-discover and internalize. 

Coaching is a term we should be deliberate about defining and utilizing inside our organizations. I don’t care as much if you use the same definition as me, but inside your organization, you should all have the same definition. This is too important a word to allow such a vague meaning. 

Note: This is why an entire section of my forthcoming book, People Solve Problems, is dedicated to coaching. I explore the why, what, who, when, and of course the how of coaching. 

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I was saddened to learn about the passing of Ron Moen last year, as we had lost far too many good people in the last year. I met Ron a very long time ago, although we had not kept in touch. He was a Deming Institute trustee and was Dr. Deming’s liaison to Pontiac in the 1980s. This connects to me as my former partner Denny Pawley was running the Pontiac Fiero plant during the time of Dr. Deming’s visits. 

Few were in a better position to understand the history of Dr. Deming’s thinking, and of PDCA, than Ron was. In honor of his work, I went back and reread his article Foundation and History of the PDSA Cycle. You can read it for yourself, but here are a couple of takeaways. 

1. Dr. Deming wasn’t about PDCA but PDSA

Ron points out that Dr. Deming told his audiences that PDCA wasn’t right…”he warned audiences that the plan, do, check, and act version is inaccurate because the English word “check” means “to hold back.” That’s obviously not the intent. PDCA came from Japanese executives recasting the Deming Wheel, as described by Imai and eventually refined by Dr. Ishikawa. 

Deming eventually talked about PDSA, although it is unclear about when he started using it. I talked about the subtle difference years ago in this video.

Deming apparently hated PDCA. Never a man to pull punches, in letters he said “…be sure to call it PDSA, not the corruption PDCA.” He also said in response to PDCA “What you propose is not the Deming Cycle. I don’t know the source of the cycle that you propose. How the PDCA ever came into existence I know not.” 

Is it time to toss out PDCA, and just use PDSA? “Study” is such a more learning-oriented word than “Check”. 

2. Less about steps, more about integration 

Perhaps the wheel wasn’t the best image to use for this learning and improvement philosophy. For anyone who has significant experiences in teaching and coaching PDSA, you start to realize that it is really a fractal, where you have multiple PDSAs embedded in a set of larger PDSAs embedded in a large PDSA. Then it starts to get confusing about which level of the PDSA chain you’re currently working on. 

The inherent problem, in my opinion, is that we are overly treating PDSA as a set of 4 steps that follow a sequence. Actions do have completion, but when you truly internalize PDSA you don’t turn off the other perspectives when you are operating in one of the “steps.” You don’t stay in Plan until complete and then move on to Do. You are always on. You are always trying to understand cause and effect, always adjusting, always observing, always learning. Are they truly steps, or are they 4 interrelated perspectives that we integrate into all that we do? 

I’m not going to propose a new image, but I do suggest a new view of PDSA as integration rather than steps can be quite useful. Maybe we should call PDSA a fractal. 

3. Going back to Deming and Shewhart isn’t the “origin story” 

In most management theories, there are always some of us that want to go back to the origin story. We don’t want to read about modern lean stuff, but instead Taiichi Ohno and Shingo’s original works, or Henry Ford and River Rouge before them. Dr. Deming is often considered one of the original management thinkers on which almost all continuous improvement is built. 

Forget for a moment that Deming was building on Shewhart, yet we almost only talk about Deming. We can go much further. Deming and Shewhart were quite literally building on scientific thinking. Moen’s article outlines there were many thought leaders of scientific thinking, going back to John Dewey, Francis Bacon, and Galileo that they built on. 

If we’re serious about this, shouldn’t we all read John Dewey and Francis Bacon? Or go back even further, as I did with The Map of Knowledge, and understand Euclid and Galen. Study the origins, and we’ll all get smarter about the path ahead. 

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In Episode 27, Mark and Jamie switch things up a bit with a morning recording of the show. While we could have just started our whiskey early, instead we decided to switch to a beverage that shares much of the same culture, craft, and appreciation as whiskey, and that is coffee. Although a bit of throwback in terms of usages, the trend towards pour-over coffee embraces the culture of single-origin coffee, much like the shift from whiskey blends towards more single casks. The pour-over method is meant to extract more of the “good stuff” and less of the “bad stuff” from freshly ground coffee beans. So Mark and I poured our coffee and got into our topics of the day. You can see our coffee selection and equipment set up in the links below.

We didn’t want to lose the whiskey theme, so we used an article exploring whether 10 million barrels of whiskey resting, or aging, in Kentucky is a good thing or a bad thing. This became a launchpad to talk about whether just-in-time is dead (as the Wall Street Journal likes to claim) or just misunderstood. We explore MIT’s The Beer Game, system dynamics, supply chain design, decision making, and the glut of face masks and hand sanitizer. We could have likely talked about this topic for a very long time, and had we been into a glass of whiskey, perhaps we would have. 

In addition to a little detour into Mark’s many hats, including the reason he wears two different hats in one episode, we close on a personal note of how we both like to start our day: with coffee, reading news, and a view. 

• Jamie’s coffee, Death Wish, and Mark’s coffee, Yellow Caturra
• Jamie’s KitchenAid grinder, Chemex pour over, and kettle
• Mark’s KitchenAid grinder, Bodum pour over, and kettle 
• 10 Million bourbon barrels resting – too much or not enough? 
• The Wall Street Journey’s misinformed piece on JIT, Jeff Liker on JIT, Dr. Jonathan Byrnes on supply chain shockwaves, and Dr. Byrnes on Mark’s LeanBlog podcast
• MIT’s The Beer Game, system dynamics and accumulators and delays, and supply and demand
• Mark’s hat and Jamie’s morning view 
• Podcast feed at LeanWhiskey.com or at leanblog.org/leanwhiskey or at jflinch.com/leanwhiskey 

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How do you avoid being made irrelevant? By making sure you make yourself irrelevant first. The concept of creative destruction, made popular by Joseph Schumpeter but previously articulated, is like a forest that is allowed to burn so that new growth can take its place. The question is – will the new growth be your own or someone else’s? And will the fire be set by yourself, or someone else? 

As part of either your continuous strategic thinking or your strategic planning process, there is one great question that should always be asked: 

If you were starting as a new competitor in our industry, how would you put us out of business?

One approach is to make this part of the conversation. Another is to assign it as a “study” question to an individual or group. But the important thing is that it is not just a “back of mind” kind of question. It should be engaged actively and purposefully. You may not be ready to engage with the answer that the question reveals, but if you wait for the competition to reveal the answers, it will likely be too late. 

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A famous, but false, anecdote about entrepreneurship is when George W. Bush told Tony Blair that the problem with the French economy is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneurs. This would have been funnier if it were true, but this French word has grown in popularity over the years, being used to describe a whole of people and activities. There are university programs, continuing education programs, and just about every Instagrammer or Tik Tok content creator that hopes to one day make some money will refer to themselves as entrepreneurs. We have created ‘intrapreneurs’ to define entrepreneurs inside of existing firms. We have social entrepreneurs who create new social efforts or non-profits. Overall, this work has been splayed out in a way where the definition has become dilutive. Personally, I’m torn between trying to reclaim it and just avoid it altogether. 

Officially, there is a definition, and it’s this: a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so. In my opinion, there are 3 keywords that make up the essence of this definition: organize, operate, and risk. Let’s examine each one. 

Organize is what happens in order to get you to the starting line. Having a thought or an idea is a part of it, but only a small part of it. You might recognize a need, a gap in the market, an unserved or underserved customer, or you just have an idea that you think is neat. That’s wonderful – good for you. But people have these thoughts every day. What’s the next step? Is the idea feasible? What’s needed to make it happen? What help do you need? The starting line might not be the launch or generating revenue, but it does mean you’ve put together your effort with, well, organization. I don’t love the word organize, because it feels fairly mundane given how difficult this phase is. However, this phase is a combination of lots and lots of mundane tasks along with a whole bunch of strategic, creative, and inspired moments along the way. 

Operate comes next. I can’t tell you how many entrepreneurs I’ve met who don’t want to talk about their idea (even when they’re pitching me to invest) because they think the idea is the value, but the ability to execute the idea is where most of the value is created. That’s why I think the team is a more important investment criterion than the idea itself. The world is filled with great ideas that couldn’t gain traction because of a lack of execution, just as it is filled with slightly less great ideas that came to fruition through superior execution. This is what happens after you cross the starting line. Thomas Edison is credited with stating that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration (although the history of him saying this exact quote is muddled, he certainly expressed the sentiment). This phase still requires strategic thinking, creativity, and lots and lots of learning, but the grind of execution is what leads you to operate something worth creating. 

Risk is also a keyword, and perhaps the word most often ignored when tossing about the entrepreneur moniker. “Opportunity cost” is not risk. Saying that you could have done something else with your time, whether for money or enjoyment and therefore you risked something, is not what this means. It means that you are at risk for loss. Traditionally this means capital, but there are other forms of loss. This is where people with nice (and sometimes incredibly valuable) side-hustles or getting paid for their talents in any form of the gig economy is not the same as building something that requires risk. I had a founder coming to me to invest in their startup. I asked them how much capital they had put in, and they explained that they liked their house and had kids in college, so they weren’t willing to give that up, which is why he was raising money from others. In my opinion, this disqualified him as an entrepreneur, I did not invest, and the business failed to achieve the promise. I don’t care if you only have $5 in your pocket, you better be willing to put $3 into your idea. Risk is a signal of commitment and conviction, and essentially your motivation to press on when facing adversity. 

There are fewer entrepreneurs in the world than Instagram and LinkedIn would suggest there exists. That’s ok. There is nothing wrong with the pursuits that don’t meet this measure, just like there is absolutely nobility in doing a job for a company. But an entrepreneur, who builds companies that often last and employ others because of the criteria above, is something specific, and something special. 

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Companies have learning to do and decisions to make. Individual employees also have learning to do and decisions to make and have to make those ideas, decisions, and concerns clear to their employees. Moving forward shouldn’t just require compromise but will require adjustments, and with the proper learning and creativity, we can absolutely make the workplace of the future stronger than the past. 

Much of what the pandemic brought about in changes is not new. Some trends are simply accelerating because of the pandemic, but we were heading there anyway. Others are more distinct new trends. Some trends are just temporary, such as an aversion to cities, that will likely revert to previous levels as they are patterns that have too much gravitational pull. 

These are some conclusions I have drawn and suggestions to make that reflect my current thinking on this ever-moving target. 

Be long-term optimistic 

Our mindset in how we approach these challenges may have a huge impact on the outcomes we achieve, and I have seen the differences from company to company. Are you trying to minimize the bad things that have changed? Or, are you trying to design work, and the workplace, to be better than it ever was? How we frame the changes determines what types of solutions we’re willing to consider, and how hard we’re willing to push to try some new things. 

The short-term is ok to be pessimistic. Things are great, and we have a lot of issues, and we have to close some gaps. But don’t allow that to cause us to lose sight of the long-term, and let’s be optimistic about the workplace we can create. 

Beware of looking at all participants through the same lens

I heard an interesting statistic in how many days companies wanted employees in the office in the future, and how many days employees wanted to be in the office. One answer was 2 days, and the other answer 3 days, and the analysis was that there will be some negotiation between employees and company management to compromise. But this problem cannot be looked at in averages. 

For one employee, who has a stressful and expensive commute, is an introvert, has a couple of slightly toxic work relationships, their ideal answer might be zero. For another employee with a small apartment, 3 preschool kids, a poor internet connection, and a need to belong, the ideal number is every working day. 

A major risk people face is either intentionally or unintentionally establishing a culture that allows people to work remotely but signals being in-person is important. This example of a job post states that important positions are not remote. That’s a dangerous precedent. 

Some companies have already made big shifts, with Spotify among others announcing that employees can work from anywhere, as the maker of WordPress has always done as documented in the book A Year With No Pants. Hawaii has offered free flights to remote workers who are willing to spend some time working from the sunny islands.

Whatever policy you decide, practices you adopt, or flexibility you do or do not employ, it will not be better for everyone. For some, it will be worse. You must acknowledge that, and deal with the consequences head-on. 

What is a workplace for? 

In rethinking the workplace of the future, we have to be clear about the purpose of the workplace. It used to be a place where people could be co-located so that pieces of paper could be easily shuffled around and, of course, a whole range of meetings could happen. Neither of those is required in the way they once were. 

Late last year I did a video on three primary purposes that a workplace can help to cultivate, and those are connection, culture, and collaboration. People want a sense of connection and a sense of belonging to a team or an organization. That’s why having a “work best friend” has long been an indicator of engagement. Now I have certainly witnessed and experienced that connection, and the trust that comes with it can be built remotely, as I have been able to do with several clients that I’ve never met in person but we have a great relationship. However, it is certainly easier in person. 

Building culture falls in the same boat. It is far easier to do in person because you have more control over the formal and informal influencing factors and experiences that help shape people’s beliefs and behaviors. And finally collaboration – it’s been amazing how structured collaboration has evolved through a range of both synchronous and asynchronous tools. However, unstructured collaboration based on random interactions and chance encounters is certainly limited, and has a history of providing effective and sometimes breakthrough innovation. 

The key point is, know WHY you want people in the office, and build your workplace around a purpose. 

Make better use and integration of synchronous and asynchronous engagement 

“Zoom fatigue” is perhaps an even more popular term than “pandemic fatigue” which indicates for many how much they struggle with this. Researchers at Stanford completed some analysis of Zoom fatigue and unfortunately, many of their proposed solutions require individuals to take action rather than broad strokes that companies could take to help their employees. Some of them are simple adjustments that I found helped early on, such as standing or sitting further away from the screen while using an external camera, or turning off self-view most of the time. But making Zoom and Teams meetings more tolerable is not going to be enough. 

Virtual meetings have changed some things, but all highlighted some of our worst behaviors. Some research has shown that meetings are, on average, 20 percent shorter but also have more attendees. In my own informal poll on LinkedIn, the majority of respondents said they are experiencing back-to-back-to-back 60-minute meetings with no breathing room in between. In general, this work is not thoughtfully designed and not sustainable. My calendar, which my clients access directly, has options for 25 minutes, 50 minutes, and 80 minutes to provide at least room to process what you just did, and be prepared and intentional with what you’re about to do. 

But better meeting management is not enough. It is also moving work out of meetings and getting better at asynchronous communication and collaboration. Much of the work done in my Learning Lab Workshops are done asynchronously, allowing both for people to schedule it into their work as it best suits them, while also allowing people to process their work in different ways. Within our team, we do 90+ percent of our work over Trello, even avoiding the black hole of email. When written communication is insufficient, then we can record a quick Loom video. Meetings are reserved for topics that require discussion. The majority of information, requests, and even feedback is completed asynchronously. 

Developing better asynchronous communication is not just catering to the introverts in the team. It is just a better way to work. 

What we care about, pay attention to, and measure? 

During the pandemic, what mattered changed very quickly. Dress codes largely went out the windows. I would have video calls with multi-billion dollar leaders while they wear tie-dye shirts and a hat. The “covid beard” became a thing. Our backgrounds for video calls were half curated, half a window into reality. I’ve met more children of my clients over video than in the past 20 years, and dramatically more pets, and that’s a wonderful thing. 

Because many people worked remotely, it was actually harder to look busy. Outcomes mattered more, and managers became more adept at evaluating outcomes versus activity, even though there were many failures along the way, including some managers who insisted that webcams stayed on so that they could see people working (or not). 

Empathy increased. Awareness of people’s personal lives, both good and bad, seemed to increase. Outcomes mattered more. Personal appearance mattered less. Dress codes mattered less. “Looking busy” mattered less. I hope these are some of the changes that we can keep in a post-pandemic world. 

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